Mother Gives Children Head Start On School

Program's Help Gets Kids Ready To Learn

She brought the program, Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters, into her home for her 3-year-old son, Dominick Lewis-Buchanan, and it proved contagious.

Before long the whole family was dancing and taking part in the interactive curriculum.

Lewis-Plummer became a paraprofessional for the program, helping other parents prepare to be their children's first teachers. She's spoken at a HIPPY national conference in Orlando and recently was taped as a HIPPY spokeswoman on a promotional video.

"HIPPY became such a big part of our life after we started working with Dominick," said Lewis-Plummer, 42. "I have a passion for this."

HIPPY gets 3- to 5-year-olds ready for school. Paraprofessionals role-play with parents to teach them how to teach their children using materials such as books, crayons and shapes.

By the time a child reaches kindergarten, he or she already is learning and often is ahead of the curve.

"When Dominick started preschool at about 31/2, the teacher said he was bored all the time," Lewis-Plummer said. "They moved him up to the 4-year-old group ... Kids were at a higher level, and he blended in with that group."

The same thing happened when Dominick entered kindergarten and was tested for the gifted program. In first grade, he was reading at a sixth-grade level. Today, in sixth grade at Roosevelt Middle School in West Palm Beach, he's reading at a 10th-grade level and is on the honor roll.

Now Dominick reads one of his HIPPY books, -- Where's Spot? -- to his 2-year-old twin brother and sister, Diniel and Dynia Lewis-Plummer.

"I'm reading them the same kind of stuff I had when I was a kid," said Dominick, now 11. "It's helping them get ready for school."

They've been through Where's Spot? so many times with their big brother that they repeat the words along with him, almost before he reads them, and giggle in delight as he finishes each page.

"One of our goals is to have children prepared to enter kindergarten and ready to succeed," explained DeMarchia Gibson, who has been HIPPY program director for eight years. "We want to have children see their parents as their first teachers. We want to help create an educational environment in their homes."

The local HIPPY program, operated under the Center for Family Services of Palm Beach County, gets its funding from the Children's Services Council of Palm Beach County, the County Commission and the University of South Florida. Its annual budget is about $780,000.

The program targets children from low-income families and families where children are not receiving pre-kindergarten services, she said.

"We used to be a secret, but now we're getting our name out into the county," Gibson said.

Lewis-Plummer said she looks forward to enrolling her twins in HIPPY when they turn 3. Her daughter Diandra Buchanan, now 14, also got HIPPY services when she was 5, but didn't benefit as much as Dominick did because he went through the full three years.

Her other children are Deirdre Buchanan, 17, and Devon Lewis-Buchanan, 15.

Lewis-Plummer is completing her master's degree in social work at Barry University, and has been offered a full-time job following her graduation at Families First, a social-service agency where she's just finished an internship. In January, she will begin an internship at Columbia Hospital in West Palm Beach.

At the core of HIPPY, she said, is the philosophy that "no children are smarter than your child. Every child is smart if you expose them [to learning] at an early age."

She beams when she talks about HIPPY.

"This program will stay with me forever," she said.

Arnie Rosenberg can be reached at alrosenberg@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6634.

ABOUT THE AGENCY

For every family or person featured in Sun-Sentinel Children's Fund stories, there are many more in need. The agency spotlighted today, HIPPY (Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters), wants to help more of them.

HIPPY began is Israel in 1969 and came to the United States in 1984. Palm Beach County's HIPPY program -- operated through the Center for Family Services of Palm Beach County -- began in 1997 with 39 families and today is the largest HIPPY program in Florida, serving 530 families.

HIPPY helps parents of 3- to 5-year-olds empower themselves as their children's first teacher by giving them the tools, skills and confidence they need to work with their children at home. The program was designed to bring families, organizations and communities together and remove barriers to participation that may include limited financial resources or lack of education.

For more information call 561-616-1225.

Contributions to the Sun-Sentinel Children's Fund will make it possible for local nonprofit agencies to serve needy children and families by providing grants for food, shelter, health care, abuse prevention services, educational and cultural programs. All administrative costs are paid by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the McCormick Tribune Foundation, which contributes $1 for every $2 donated.